When Is An Outrage Not An Outrage? Bruce Springsteen And Taylor Swift Get Too Big For Their Britches

“Jesus was so big, why’d they kill him? Because he was still the son of God. Still is not news. Somebody is still the greatest beauty, actor, record producer, you can’t put that in the paper. What is news, then? News is that he likes little boys, that he’s a thief that he cheats on his wife. Or in the absence of any fault, that he’s just too goddamn big for his fucking britches. Which is why they killed Christ.”

-David Mamet

The outrage over Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift, over, well, nothing, had me wondering why. It hits me as much the same as the words David Mamet put into the mouth of Phil Spector, reported above: Taylor doesn’t play the game, Bruce is stuck in a game not of his making, and they are both too big for their britches.

Taylor Swift doesn’t have to do anything to cause outrage, she is too white, too blonde, she doesn’t get involved in politics, and her refusal to comment on white supremacists or Donald Trump are seen as a sign of acquiescence by a woman whose hip hop bonafides had her singing with T-Pain and adding Kendrick Lamar to a hit single before you knew who he was. The Weeknd was her guest when I caught her at Metlife… This is actually too stupid to write about, she has done zero to deserve this blood libe.

What else has Taylor done? Depeche Mode did the exact same thing (when you bought their album you moved up on the presale code). As Bruce recently proved, Verified Tickets isn’t working as planned (I’ll get to Bruce soon), but Taylor doesn’t need to tell the faithful to buy her merchandize, we do it anyway. I always buy the tee shirt and the deluxe or add ons. Do you think ticket brokers buy ’em? It is a clever idea, and it will help in ways Bruce couldn’t.

Marvin Harris in a stupendously misconceived article on Vulture (here) claims Taylor as the poster child for the Trump age. What rubbish, does that make her the poster child of Obama’s Presidency when “Blank Space” was a big hit? Has Taylor performed at the White House? Has she endorsed Trump? Has she mentioned him? While Katy Perry is woking everybody to tears of boredom, Taylor HAS DONE NOTHING. You don’t like the new single, fine. You want to condemn her for celebrity feuds, why not be quiet? This isn’t 2Pac and Biggie, this isn’t Big L -people aren’t dying. It is pop glamor silliness.The only thing I found iffy is releasing the album on November 10th. This is why people are dubbing Taylor a collaborator and a bitch? Complete nonsense.

For Bruce it is even stupider. I once got great tickets for Adele through her fanclub and had to sell them. HAD TO. I got $1,500 for a $200 ticket. I couldn’t afford not to. Sure, Bruce’s top ticket is $1K, the top ticket on Stubhub is $19K. There is no price Bruce could have placed them, however cheap, that wouldn’t have cost an arm and a league on Stubhub. Hopefully, the people making the money is the fans at least but either way, Springsteen isn’t to blame. Broadway is supply and demand made simple, you can buy a ticket for “1984” on Goldstar for less than a 3D movie, why don’t people complain about the poor producers losing money and insist on paying top dollar? It is completely ridiculous. I’ve had at Bruce about his farm taxes in no uncertain terms, but not for selling his tickets something like ten times under value on Ticketmaster. It’s not Bruce’s fault you can’t afford them, he didn’t invent poverty. Hell, even Jesus gave up on that one. Most tickets on Broadway sell well under face, big hits, the “Hamiltons” of the world are much more expensive. Bruce did his best but it isn’t within his scope to do anything. Maybe he could have held some back for people who write essays on why they love the Boss, but even then the profit is too much for all but the biggest fan to resist. Bruce’s only other option was not to do it.

The new standby mode in the US is moral outrage. Everybody is outraged about something, always. You wanna blame Trump for Hurricane Harvey, ok, do it. Be outraged about everything till it has no meaning. I once dated a girl who broke up with me every time we fought. The first couple of times I was worried, after that I ignored her.